The semiconductor industry uses fluorinated gases, such as carbon tetrafluoride and hexafluoroethane, as etchants and cleaning gases in semiconductor manufacturing processes. These gases do not fully react within the reaction chamber. The unused (unreacted) gases enter the atmosphere through the process effluent from such reactors and have long persistence in the atmosphere. These gases absorb infrared radiation and are, therefore, potential global warming gases. The industry has sought ways to diminish the amount of fluorinated gases reaching the atmosphere and ways to recycle such gases particularly in light of their low utilization on a single pass basis for their intended etching and cleaning purposes.
Fluorochemicals, such as perfluorinated hydrocarbons and perfluorinated chemicals, are used in the semiconductor industry as safe and noncorrosive sources of fluorine. In plasma environments, fluorochemicals, such as fluorinated gases, form fluorine species which are capable of etching wafers or cleaning insides of reactor chambers. The gaseous products of the etching or cleaning process are exhausted from the reactor chamber to the scrubber or vent systems of the semiconductor fabrication plant with potential for venting to atmosphere. Consumption of fluorinated gases in the reactor chamber is not complete. Experiments have shown that in some cases less than 10% of hexafluoroethane is used.
Abatement of fluorochemicals currently follows several techniques. One method currently used by the semiconductor industry for insuring that fluorochemicals are not released to the environment involves combustion of the fluorochemicals contained in an effluent stream. While this method effectively destroys the fluorochemicals, thus preventing environmental pollution, it also makes it impossible to reuse the fluorochemicals. This method is also disadvantageous because it generates waste gases, such as hydrogen fluoride and nitrogen oxides, which require further treatment. Furthermore, combustion processes require fuel and oxygen to operate, adding additional operating and capital cost to the semiconductor and manufacturing operation.
Alternatively, these fluorochemicals can be recovered for reuse. Several schemes have been published in the literature to capture these chemicals.
Glenn M. Tom, et al. in the article "PFC Concentration and Recycle", Mat. Res. Soc. Symp. Proc. Vol. 344, 1994, pp 267-272 describes a process for concentrating perfluorinated gases using carbon-containing adsorptive beds. This process requires considerable energy demands based upon pressurization and depressurization to maintain a continuous process in switching adsorptive beds.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,502,969 discloses a process using a mass transfer contact zone with a wash liquid and one or more stages of cryogenic distillation to recover fluorine compounds from a carrier gas such as those constituting an effluent stream from a semiconductor facility. Both cryogenics and adsorption comprise energy-intensive and capital-intensive separatory processes.
Dennis Rufin in a presentation at a semiconductor PFC workshop in Austin, Tex., Feb. 7, 1996, presented a process for recycling perfluorochemicals from a process tool exhaust. The process involves compression, wet and dry scrubbing, additional compression, filtration, a concentration step followed by condensation and packaging for recycle after off site purification, certification and additional repackaging. The perfluorocarbon concentration unit disclosed in the process sequence was not identified. Rufin made a similar presentation at Semicon West, PFC CAPTURE ALPHA SYSTEMS TESTING UPDATE, 1996, pp 49-54.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,119,417 discloses a process wherein a feed gas stream is passed over two cascade connected semi-permeable membranes with the permeate stream from the second membrane being recycled to the feed gas prior to the first membrane. The process is typified by a separation of nitrogen from krypton. Other gases which can be separated from various binary mixtures include hydrogen, helium, nitrogen, oxygen, air, neon, argon, krypton, xenon, radon, fluorine, chlorine, bromine, uranium hexafluoride, ozone, hydrocarbons, sulfur dioxide, vinyl chloride, acrylonitrile and nitrogen oxides. The membranes utilized for these separations include silicon rubber, polybutadiene rubber, polyethylene, tetramethyl pentane resin, cellulose acetate, ethyl cellulose, Nuclear Pore, a material produced by General Electric, tetrafluoroethylene, polyester and porous metal membranes.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,654,063 discloses a process for conducting hydrogen purification using a semi-permeable membrane along with a non-membrane type separation wherein the retentate from the membrane can be further processed in a cryogenic or adsorptive separation system.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,701,187 discloses the use of cascade membranes wherein the retentate from a first membrane is conducted to a second membrane and the retentate from the second membrane is conducted to a down stream further adsorptive separation for product recovery. The permeate from the second membrane is recycled to the feed of the first membrane.
Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. and Radian International L.L.C. publicized a process titled PFC Recovery Systems for the Electronics Industry, 1996, Publication No. 325-95410 depicting a process wherein a mixture of vacuum pump diluent and fluorinated gases from a process tool of a semiconductor fabrication facility passes through a guard bed and a wet scrubber followed by gas compression, drying and adsorption with recycle of a portion of the purified diluent from the absorbers to before the gas compression, while the more concentrated fluorinated gases pass through further gas compression, condensation and distillation to recover a product, such as 99.9+% hexafluoroethane. The process can be designed to recover hexafluoroethane, carbon tetrafluoride, trifluoromethane, nitrogen trifluoride and sulfur hexafluoride.
Rautenbach, et al., Gas Permeation-Module Design and Arrangement, Chem. Eng. Process, 21, 1987, pp. 141-150 discloses various membrane arrangements for gas separation.
A European Patent Application published as EP 0 754 487 A1 discloses a process for recovery of perfluorinated compounds from a gas mixture using a combination of membranes and distillation to recover the perfluorinated components. The permeate stream from the membrane unit(s) is recycled as feed to the membrane unit. There is no disclosure relating to using the permeate stream as a vacuum pump diluent or as part of the feed to a compressor up stream of either a membrane/adsorption or adsorption/membrane process to recover and reuse the perfluorinated compounds and an enriched diluent stream.
Additional patents of interest include U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,180,388, 4,894,068, 5,240,471 and 5,252,219.
The prior art, although addressing the problem of capture and recycle of fluorochemicals used in the semiconductor industry, such as perfluorinated compounds and more specifically perfluorocarbons, has failed to provide a low capital cost, low energy-intensive process for the capture and concentration of the desired fluorinated compounds as is achieved by the present invention, which will be set forth in greater detail below.